This volume provides readers with recent sociological approaches to family understanding, theorising and practices within the context of continuities and change, both across generations and during individual life courses. The contributors uniquely investigate the friction between persisting family needs and changing circumstances, between holding on to traditional family norms and adapting to fast-changing demands. Authors from nine countries develop and apply innovative theoretical and methodological approaches for a more differentiated description of European family lives at the beginning of the 21st century, and show that family sociology has achieved significant commonalities across national borders in Europe, thus helping our understanding of complex family realities.

Vida esnuityt is Lecturer of Sociology and Social Policy and Head of the Sociological Research Laboratory at Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania.

Detlev Lück is Senior Researcher at the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), Wiesbaden, Germany.

Eric D. Widmer is Professor of Family Sociology at the Department of Sociology, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Introduction; Vida esnuityt, Eric D. Widmer, Detlev Lück.- PART I EXPLANATION OF FAMILY CONTINUITY AND CHANGE.- 1 Approaches to the study of family life: Practices, context and narrative; Julia Brannen.- 2. Family salience across nations: Configurations of morphological conditions; Eric D. Widmer, Olga Ganjour.- 3 Cultural conceptions of family as inhibitors of change in family lives: The leitbild approach; Detlev Lück, Sabine Diabaté, Kerstin Ruckdeschel.- 4 The importance of the family as an institution: Findings from an Italian survey; Sara Mazzucchelli, Giovanna Rossi, Maria Letizia Bosoni.- PART II FAMILY ACROSS INDIVIDUAL LIFE COURSE.- 5 Influence of personal networks on decisionmaking in family

formation nowadays: Has it changed?; Vida esnuityt.- 6 Relational networks of young couples and marriage choice paths in Italy: Data on membership and influence;Matteo Moscatelli, Donatella Bramanti.- 7 Rebuilding family? Continuity and change in family membership and relationship closeness in postseparation situations 

AnnaMaija Castrén.- 8 Coresidence as a mechanism of relational proximity: The impact 

of household trajectories on the diversification of personal networks;Vasco Ramos, Rita Gouveia, Karin Wall.-  9 The impact of coresidence trajectories on personal networks 

in the transition to adulthood: A comparative perspective; Gaëlle Aeby, JacquesAntoine Gauthier, Rita Gouveia, Vasco Ramos, Karin Wall, Vida esnuityt.- PART III FAMILY PRACTICES.- 10 Why parents take unpaid parental leave: Evidence from Spain; Gerardo Meil, Pedro RomeroBalsas, Jesús RogeroGarcía.- 11 The creativity of mothering: Intensity, anxiety and normative accountability; Lisa Smyth.- 12 Farm fathers and their fathers: Flexible work and cultural change; Berit Brandth.- CONCLUSIONS: CHANGES AND CONTINUITIES IN EUROPEAN FAMILY LIVES; Detlev Lück, Eric D. Widmer, Vida esnuityt